Devlin was frowning. ‘So you have a “feeling”.’
‘Yes,’ Anna said.
‘You have a feeling that Mr. Staines is somewhere inland, and that he is alive.’
‘Yes,’ said Anna. ‘I can’t give you any details. I know it’s somewhere muddy. Or leafy. Somewhere near water, only it isn’t the beach. The water’s quick-moving. Over stones … You see: as soon as I try and put it into words, it trips away from me.’
‘This all sounds very vague, my dear.’
‘It’s not vague,’ Anna said. ‘I’m certain of it. Just as when you’re certain you did have a dream … you knew you dreamed … but you can’t remember any of the details.’
‘How long have you been having these “feelings”? These dreams?’
‘Only since I stopped whoring,’ Anna said. ‘Since my blackout.’
‘Since Staines disappeared, in other words.’
‘The fourteenth of January,’ said Anna. ‘That was the date.’
‘Is it always the same—the water, the mud? The same dream?’
‘No.’
She did not elaborate, and to prompt her Devlin said, ‘Well, what else?’
‘Oh,’ she said, embarrassed. ‘Just sensations, really. Snatches. Impressions.’
‘Impressions of what?’
She looked away from him. ‘Impressions of me,’ she said.
‘I’m afraid I don’t understand you.’
She turned her hand over. ‘What he thinks of me. Mr. Staines, I mean. What he dreams about, when he imagines me.’
‘You see yourself—but through his eyes.’
‘Yes,’ Anna said. ‘Exactly.’
‘Ought I to infer that Mr. Staines holds you in high esteem?’
‘He loves me,’ she said, and then after a moment, she said it again. ‘He loves me.’
Devlin studied her critically. ‘I see,’ he said. ‘Has he made an avowal of his love?’
‘No,’ Anna said. ‘He doesn’t need to. I know it, just the same.’
‘Do you get these feelings frequently?’
‘Very frequently,’ she said. ‘He thinks of me all the time.’
Devlin nodded. The situation was at last becoming clear to him, and with this dawning clarity his heart was sinking in his chest. ‘Are you in love with Mr. Staines, Miss Wetherell?’
‘We spoke of it,’ she said. ‘The night he vanished. We were talking nonsense, and I said something silly about unrequited love, and he became very serious, and he stopped me, and he said that unrequited love was not possible; that it was not love. He said that love must be freely given, and freely taken, such that the lovers, in joining, make the equal halves of something whole.’
‘A passionate sentiment,’ Devlin said.
This seemed to please her. ‘Yes,’ she said.
‘But he did not declare his love for you, after all that.’
‘He didn’t make any vows. I said that.’
‘And nor did you.’
‘I never got another chance,’ she said. ‘That was the night he disappeared.’
Cowell Devin sighed. Yes, he understood Anna Wetherell at long last, but it was not a happy understanding. Devlin had known many women of poor prospects and limited means, whose only transport out of the miserable cage of their unhappy circumstance was the flight of the fantastic. Such fantasies were invariably magical—angelic patronage, invitations into paradise—and Anna’s story, touching though it was, showed the same strain of the impossible. Why, it was painfully clear! The most eligible bachelor of Anna’s acquaintance possessed a love so deep and pure that all respective differences between them were rendered immaterial? He was not dead—he was only missing? He was sending her ‘messages’ that proved the depth of his love—and these were messages that only she could hear? It was a fantasy, Devlin thought. It was a fantasy of the girl’s own devising. The boy could only be dead.
‘You want Mr. Staines to love you very much, don’t you, Miss Wetherell?’
Anna seemed offended by his implication. ‘He does love me.’
‘That wasn’t my question.’
She squinted at him. ‘Everyone wants to be loved.’
‘That’s very true,’ Devlin said, sadly. ‘We all want to be loved—and need to be loved, I think. Without love, we cannot be ourselves.’
‘You’re of a mind with Mr. Staines.’
‘Am I?’
‘Yes,’ Anna said. ‘That is precisely the sort of thing that he would say.’
‘Your Mr. Staines is quite the philosopher, Miss Wetherell.’
‘Why, Reverend,’ Anna said, smiling suddenly, ‘I believe you’ve just paid yourself a compliment.’
They did not speak for a moment. Anna sipped again at her sugared drink, and Devlin, brooding, looked out across the hotel dining room. After a moment Anna’s hand went to her bosom, where the forged deed of gift still lay against her skin.
Devlin looked sharply at her. ‘You have ample time to reconsider,’ he said.
‘I only want a legal opinion.’
‘You have my clerical opinion.’
‘Yes,’ Anna said. ‘“Blessed are the meek”.’
She seemed to regret this impudence immediately; a violent blush spread across her face and neck, and she turned away. Suddenly Devlin wanted nothing more to do with her. He pushed his chair back from the table, and placed his hands on his knees.
‘I will accompany you to the Courthouse door and no further,’ he said. ‘What you do with the document in your possession is no longer my business. Know that I will not lie to protect you. I will certainly not lie in a court of law. If anyone asks, I shall not hesitate to tell them the truth, which is that you forged that signature with your own hand.’
‘All right,’ said Anna, rising. ‘Thank you very much for the pie. And the cordial. And thank you for all that you said to Mrs. Wells.’
Devlin rose also. ‘You oughtn’t to thank me for that,’ he said. ‘I let my temper get the better of me there, I’m afraid. I wasn’t at my best.’
‘You were marvellous,’ Anna said, and she stepped forward, and put her hands on his shoulders, and kissed him very nicely on the cheek.
By the time Anna Wetherell arrived at the Hokitika Courthouse, Aubert Gascoigne had already departed for the Reserve Bank, the envelope from John Hincher Garrity snug in the inside pocket of his jacket; Alistair Lauderback had likewise long since left the building. Anna was received by a red-faced solicitor named Fellowes, whom she did not know. He directed her into an alcove at the far side of the hall, where they sat down on either side of a plain deal table. Anna handed him the charred document without a word. The lawyer placed it on the table before him, squaring it with the edge of the desk, and then cupped his hands around his eyes to read it.
‘Where did you get this?’ Fellowes said at last, looking up.
‘It was given to me,’ Anna said. ‘Anonymously.’
‘When?’
‘This morning.’
‘Given how?’
‘Someone slipped it under the door,’ Anna lied. ‘While Mrs. Wells was down here at the Courthouse.’
‘Down here at the Courthouse, receiving the news that her appeal has been revoked at last,’ Fellowes said, with a sceptical emphasis. He turned back to the document. ‘Crosbie Wells … and Staines is the fellow whom nobody’s heard from … and Miss Wetherell is you. Strange. Any idea who dropped it off?’
‘No.’
‘Or why?’
‘No,’ Anna said. ‘I suppose someone wanted to do me a good turn.’
‘Anyone in mind? Care to speculate?’